When I think of meekness, I can’t help but think of my dad. Truth be told, Mom was hard to please some days—perhaps most days. She liked change a lot, and she liked to take control. Day after day my dad would hop in the car to pick up her groceries, and day after day he’d go back to the store and return them. Whether it was the wrong brand, the wrong flavor, or the wrong price, there was always a reason to send him back out. If it wasn’t groceries, it was clothing or hardware or shoes. Always buying and always returning.
When he was home he patiently listened while she complained. She complained about him, about the dog, about the kids, about the church, about the house… It would seem that if there was something to grumble about, she found it.
One day an old friend of theirs was visiting from out of town. When she saw how discouraging the situation was, she pulled him aside.
“Why do you stay with her when she treats you so badly?” She asked.
“I know she loves me,” he said. “That’s just her way.” And the thing is, he truly meant every word that he said.
Dad had a gentle way about him—an inner strength that kept him from losing his cool.
Do you know what his secret was? His attitude stemmed from within. He wasn’t weak by any stretch of the imagination, he was firmly planted in Christ. In fact, I can honestly say that I don’t remember him ever having a bad day. He was always laughing, always smiling, and always talking about the Lord.
The world tends to define meekness as weakness, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Flying off the handle is the easy way out—the difficult path is patient endurance. That takes inner strength. John Macarthur defines meekness well when he writes,
“Meekness” is a humble attitude that expresses itself in the patient endurance of offenses. “Gentleness” is a virtual synonym. It implies leniency and long-suffering. Meekness is not weakness; it is power under control. – John Macarthur
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Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. (Proverbs 16:32, NIV)
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Darlene Schacht and her husband Michael live in Manitoba Canada where the summers are beautiful and the winters are cold. Together they’ve come to learn that relationships aren’t always easy, but that marriage, the way God intended it to be, is a treasure worth fighting for.
She began her publishing journey about twelve years ago when she pioneered one of the first online magazines for Christian women, known at the time as “Christian Women Online Magazine.” After three years, Darlene left CWO to blog as a solo author at Time-Warp Wife Ministries.
It was also during this transition that she worked alongside actress Candace Cameron Bure to write the NYT Best-Selling book, Reshaping it All: Motivation for Spiritual and Physical Fitness. Reshaping it All was the winner of both the 2011 USA Best Book Awards and the 2012 Christian Reading Retailers Choice Awards.
Author of more than 15 books, Darlene continues to write and to minister to her readers through her blog at TimeWarpWife.com.
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You are loved by an almighty God,
Darlene Schacht
The Time-Warp Wife